Microsoft is bringing Minecraft to Apple TV

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at the Apple event today that Microsoft will be bringing Minecraft to the Apple TV; Minecraft is already available on a dozen different platforms – though, with a few problems of its own.

Cook revealed the news while talking about the success of Apple TV since the refresh last year – there are about 8000 apps available on the Apple TV platform, 2000 of which are games.

The new version is aptly named Minecraft: Apple TV Edition; however, it isn’t clear at the moment if this version is based on the Pocket Edition, or if it shares any code with the Windows 10 edition – likely not, but it would be best for either Mojang or Microsoft to confirm that.

Mojang – the developers of Minecraft – have been trying to merge the different versions of Minecraft and bring them to feature parity with players sharing the same realms – multiplayer servers – across platforms. The addition of yet another platform just makes the job harder for the team.

The move, though, is not surprising – Microsoft has been working on bringing its services across platforms, and Minecraft is one of the best cheerleaders for that. Cortana works on Android, Office works on iOS, and Linux works on Windows – these are just some of the examples.

Cook said that the game would be available on Apple TV by the end of this year. You will obviously also need to purchase a 3rd party controller to play a game like Minecraft – the Apple TV Remote might not be the most intuitive way of placing blocks.